November 2018: YTD Games Spending Reaches Highest Level in 8 Years

November spending across U.S. video game hardware, software, accessories, and game cards totaled $2.7 billion, flat compared to a year ago. Hardware, accessories, and game card spending was offset by a decline in software due to the shift of the launch of Call of Duty into October. But even so, year-to-date video games spending reached its highest level in eight years. Here’s a closer look . . .

Software

YTD dollar sales of console, portable, and PC games software spending exceeded $5.8 billion, up 9% vs. a year ago.This is the highest YTD spend achieved since 2011!

Best-Selling Title Spotlight:

Red Dead Redemption 2

With 2 months in market, sales now exceed the lifetime sales of the previous title in the franchise by nearly 40%.

Call of Duty:Black Ops IIII

This title remains the best-selling game YTD. It’s the second-fastest selling game on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in history, trailing only 2017's Call of Duty: WWII.

Hardware

YTD spending has increased 14%, reaching $3.9B.

For the first time in history, 3 console platforms achieved more than 1M units sold in a November month.

Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One each generated over 1.3M units of sales.

Accessories and Game Cards

The NPD Group delivers monthly point-of-sale data on U.S. video games industry sales of new physical-game retail purchases and full game downloads from participating publishers on PlayStation, STEAM, and Xbox platforms.